The use of metal-based conductor mesh for application where light transmission and electrical conductance are needed is known in the art. Examples of such applications include shielding for electromagnetic interference for displays. In the industry, a mesh is typically understood to mean a pattern geometry having connected traces that are separated by open area to form cells.
It has been observed in the current work that some mesh designs, when integrated into a display and viewed under reflected, collimated light (such as in direct sunlight), may produce undesirable visual effects. Illustrative undesirable visual effects include, e.g., a starburst pattern for reflected light and bands of colored reflected light (similar to a rainbow) caused by light interference, each being observable when a mesh containing linear traces and a repeating cell geometry is disposed an unmodified substrate, such as a plastic film or glass. Illustrative examples of meshes with linear traces include those having hexagonal and square cells. Sparkle, which is an undesirable visual appearance of points of reflected light, can also appear for linear traced-based conductor meshes.
Some skilled in the art have attempted to reduce the visual appearance of overlaid mesh micropatterns by using wavy traces in producing a display, such as a touch screen display. See, e.g., PCT International Publication No. WO 2010/099132 A2 describing a articles such as antennas, electromagnetic interference shields and touch screen sensors having a light transparent substrate and two conductive meshes, each having linear traces, where the first mesh overlays a second mesh in a certain configuration so as to minimize the traces' visibility.
Others have attempted to use ambient light reducing members such as an optical interference member. See PCT International Publication No. WO 2003/105248 disclosing an optical interference member including a semi-absorbing member layer for reflecting a portion of incident ambient light, a substantially transparent layer for phase shifting another portion of ambient light and a reflective layer for reflecting the phase shifted ambient light such that the two reflected portions of light are out-of-phase and thereby destructively interfere.